Maryfield councillor Craig Melville has branded the situation in the park unacceptable and promised to investigate how the problem might be eased with the city council and the car park’s management company.

Mr Melville said, “I’ll speak to Mike Galloway, director of transport and planning, to see if they’ve looked at things in the past and to see what can be done. It’s not acceptable and I’ll also be contacting the parking company responsible.”

One motorist said he spent an exasperating hour-and-a-half trying to extricate himself from the car park.

Richard McLaren, of Barnhill, said, “I have just spent one-and-a-half hours in a traffic jam in the middle of the Gallagher Retail Park car park on a holiday Monday and am left astounded there is no one who would take responsibility for the shambles.

“I phoned the police, who informed me the car park is private and they can only monitor the situation.

“So despite it being perfectly obvious to the police that half the Dundee public were sitting in their cars getting increasingly frustrated, they could do absolutely nothing about the problem.”

Another motorist said she had only been able to travel “five car lengths” inside 15 minutes.

Many drivers are drawn to the park by its generous policy of allowing the first two hours’ parking free of charge. But when it comes to leave the site they find themselves stuck in snarl-ups — largely because the 8.75-acre site has just a single exit on to East Dock Street.

The retail park is owned by J. J. Gallagher Ltd, with management contracted to Town and City Parking Limited of Perth.

Their website boasts “effective, tailor-made parking solutions” and “effectively managed car park facilities”.

Yellow-jacketed attendants had patrolled the car park over the Christmas period, but there was no sight of any such assistance for the afflicted motorists over the bank holiday weekend. Calls to the company’s head office have gone unanswered.

Annette Smith, operations manager at Borders, said the bank holiday traffic had been particularly bad.

“It does affect us — and it was pretty bad today,” she said. “We get lots of people complaining about the traffic, that the lights don’t change enough.

“From my own personal experience, if I get a taxi to work they say they won’t come in because it would take too long to get back out again.”

The car park’s markings give preference to those leaving from the east end, leaving those parked nearer to the city centre facing a struggle to pull out into a steady stream of traffic.